The reason there isn’t always another product is because the industry is full of anticompetitive practices like proprietary file formats and collaboration (read: cloud) features. Ironically MS Office is one of the less anticompetitive ones. Stuff like CAD software is full of this nonsense.
Sure, you should avoid products and vendors that lock you in or even just try to nudge you to using their other products (because that’s usually how the lock-in starts). O365 changing the default save location to Onedrive comes to mind. (Insert Hank Hill onedrive meme).
I guess there can be cases where you truly don’t have much of a choice.
I’d argue that if you write CAD software with your own open source file formallt, chances are that people would not bother implementing it, unless your application gets traction.
Small niche products wouldn’t even be at risk by open sourcing (IMHO)
The reason there isn’t always another product is because the industry is full of anticompetitive practices like proprietary file formats and collaboration (read: cloud) features. Ironically MS Office is one of the less anticompetitive ones. Stuff like CAD software is full of this nonsense.
And the anti-competitive practices won’t stop unless we persistently step on corporations’ necks. Capitalism incentivizes these behaviours.
Sure, you should avoid products and vendors that lock you in or even just try to nudge you to using their other products (because that’s usually how the lock-in starts). O365 changing the default save location to Onedrive comes to mind. (Insert Hank Hill onedrive meme).
I guess there can be cases where you truly don’t have much of a choice.
I’d argue that if you write CAD software with your own open source file formallt, chances are that people would not bother implementing it, unless your application gets traction. Small niche products wouldn’t even be at risk by open sourcing (IMHO)